What does long solo shuffle queues say about the game?

Community General Discussion
51

I know this is a necro, but PvP died pretty much after MoP.

In early WoW, PvPers made up half the game, easily.

Then one day, around Cataclysm, League of Legends came out and loads of PvPers just left for that. Dota 2 later on, as well.

Basically, WoW PvP was abandoned for other games.

PvE wasn’t abandoned, because it was still fairly unique, even now with M+, not a lot of other games provide something similar.

Imagine if WoW devs stopped adding to PvE because there were better PvE games out there- that’s what happened with PvP.

The WoW devs decided they couldn’t compete, and PvP population fell to whatever it is now, probably around 5% of WoW players doing PvP at the moment.

It’s really bad, and saying PvP is dead is an understatement.

Would you play League of Legends or Call of Duty if the matches were around 45 mins to 1 hour of waiting between games?

No, you would not. You’d drop that game because it’s dead, and play something else.

52

To answer the question in the OP: it simply means that not enough people are willing to put up with being a healer in solo-queue PvP and all the fame that they get in that context.

53

so I don’t spend any time pvping, but this seems like an easy fix too me.

just have the system match all dps vs all dps when there are not enough healers.

54

This is all wrong.

PvP is the second most valued feature of WoW right now, only behind M+, according to the poll on this very forum.

WoW PvP (BGs) is still incredibly fun and unique among all MMOs.

Solo Shuffle is dead because it’s a terrible format, almost as bad as arenas.

Random BGs are dying because Blizzard is doing nothing to balance the PvP classes and to combat the rampant premade issue/sync join cheating, which has been creeping even into BG Blitz, the best feature ever added to WoW PvP in decades.

The easier fix, and this has been an answer since forever, is removing healers from PvP.
You get a much faster, funner game.

55

Haha, it is? If that’s true, WoW might be in an even worse spot that I expected.

Battleground queues have only been getting longer, on average about 7 mins for a regular casual BG queue, and they often don’t even fully fill anymore.

Contrast this with WoTLK PvP during peak, instant queues, always under 2 minutes, full every time before the battle starts.

PvP has been in continued decline more than any other activity in this game. It’s the scene that’s died the hardest.

Rated, especially. Go look in the rated battlegrounds section of the LFG tool and tell me what you see, lol.

56

Yes, it’s true.

Rated BGs were never worth it for the solo/casual players, even when new and at the peak, because one loss = team disband.

Pretty much the same as lead raiding in the group finder: one wipe = at least 6 ppl leave, gotta wait for refill summons etc.

BG Blitz will be changing that scenario.

57

That’s the only thing I actually am excited for, because I can keep playing Rated Battlegrounds alone and not worry about finding a group, which is an impossible task these days.

Solo Queue RBGs should have been implemented a while ago, because groups can’t stay together.

58

I know many PvPlayers who are excited to finally have a rated PvP mode that cater to us, even if BG Blitz has its weirdness and is not exactly the rated solo randoms we were looking for.

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59

In the end, if a problem is still relevant, I don’t believe this count as a necro: if queues were fixed, the thread would die because people would have no reason to complain, but queues are so long nowadays that to get a few wins I need to spend hours reading stuff on forums.

I agree regarding the % of pvp players, cause usually only 3-5% of players end up getting the seasonal vicious mount, and only a very small % gets it later when the saddle vendor starts selling it.

60

I would’ve taken normal BGs, just solo queues and rated.

But tbh, Battleground Blitz is welcome fun.

The fact that mounts are faster and the battles are 8v8 mean they go by faster, so more players can get into games faster.

There’s just too much waiting involved in current PvP, imo.

61

As someone who always did rated bgs for vicious mounts in bfa and SL I can tell you this is fully to blame on solo shuffle: there were 45 groups last season I checked at peak time (SL s4), now something like 5 and all high rating.

People don’t like the toxic and timewasting lfg environment, and solo shuffle is a solution for that, the only downside the terrible queues.

62

I don’t think that makes sense lol.

Solo Shuffle is closer to Arena than it is RBGs.

I still prefer RBGs, I don’t think I’ll ever appreciate Solo Shuffle for what it is.

Just target whoever is the least geared/has the lowest overall HP and you basically win. It’s also a nightmare for healers, probably the worst thing you can experience as a healer.

I got into RBGs as a healer, and that’s the peak PvP experience, imo.

No small deathmatches in a small room that favor melee, nah. An actual large battle with objectives, tanks having a purpose, etc.

In terms of Conquest, I think RBGs still net you the most as well, along with arenas.

63

Well, both arena and rbg participation went down a lot when shuffle came around, some people are interested in the rewards and they now have an alternative to lfg, so they take it.

If you want a screen of 45 groups around during SL for rbg, I can find you some.

64

When players asked for solo queue, I assumed they wanted something along the lines of a rated solo skirmish, not 6 games rotating the comp. This makes queues long, breeds toxicity, and makes it difficult for healers to climb with rating.

Also, healing uncoordinated 3s is awful, teammates tunnel, LOS you, fail to peel, fail to use defensives etc. There’s also high toxicity, flaming, etc. I once witnessed one dps getting angry at the other and tossed games on purpose, people rage quit… all of this contributes to a very unpleasant laddering experience.

As a healer, pvp was once my choice for end game content. Solo shuffle was awful, and the 2s and 3s ladder was so deflated fighting multi glads as low as 1400 cr, I quit and converted to a mythic+ player. I never looked back. I feel my actions are far more impactful than they were in SS and I’m rewarded far better for my efforts. But, I can’t be the only healer who converted and had the same sentiments?

There’s other issues too. A lot of times classes are balanced around raid/mythic+ and this doesn’t always translate well into pvp, so you’ll have broken specs/horrible imbalance. By the time these problems are addressed (if even) it’s often far too late causing many frustrated players to write off pvp for good/unsub.

It will be interesting to see what happens with rated solo battlegrounds. I think it may kill off other forms of pvp, because right now we have many modes of play splitting the already dwindling playerbase. Battlegrounds is more user-friendly, and healers have more breathing room. Damping in SS was terrible.

tl;dr to answer your question OP, it means pvp is in one of the most unhealthy states it has even been and has many dire flaws that need to be addressed if it ever wants to have an active, healthy playerbase again.

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65

I just also think, if PvP was fine/alive, and Solo Shuffle queues were this long (45 mins) then that indicates they’re PvPing in another way.

But, as far as I know, pretty much all forms of PvP are dead except casual PvP, and that has longer queues than it used to have.

The only thing Solo Shuffle did actually kill was Arenas, I was there for that.

My IRL friend and 2’s partner quit in DF season 1, so buckling down and going into Shuffle was really my only choice if I wanted to continue.

Finding a replacement arena partner was hard so I just gave up and went to see how well I could do on my own.

Lol, I did better than with my parner, ended up reaching 1800/Rival in Solo Shuffle.

I still don’t like it though, which is a shame.

I still yearn for the battlegrounds.

BG Blitz will sate me, I just know it.

66

Yes, this is also what I would’ve preferred: solo queue for 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3 or rbg, some private servers in wow do that, and the queues are definitely the biggest issue of shuffle currently.

Yes, I noticed some rare cases where people flame others, and then the people who get flamed lose matches on purpose when paired with the flamer, so it makes sense to not flame, got me some free win!

There’s no doubt m+ is better off than rated pvp, it has much more participation and you can see this if you compare how many people get the keystone master and the vicious mount: vicious mounts are arguably easier than keystone master mounts, or at least no harder, and yet 23% of players (almost 1\4 of the playerbase) got this season’s KSM mount and only 1,2% got the vicious mount (1\80 of the playerbase), so it’s 20x less popular!

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67

Yes, you’re right about this, I was just letting people notice how most of the rated pvp playerbase immediately swapped to shuffle as soon as it became available, but there’s no question rated pvp participation has been low for several expansions now, this can be noticed by the fact 20x more people get the KSM mount than the vicious ones each season.

Indeed, I remember bg queues not being very impressive even in unrated, even though that still has more people playing.

I’m also hopeful bg blitz will be the solution, I definitely prefer rated bg and liked them all the time I did them in bfa and SL, it’d have been perfect if I didn’t have to wait sometimes 30 mins to get into a game because of the lfg system and lack of healers and especially tanks.

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68

Man i wouldnt even bother lol, 70 mins lol

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69

Most games follow this format. There’s always a surplus of DPS and never enough heals or tanks. Mostly because these two roles get a lot of abuse, especially in a PVP setting.

No one wants to listen to someone whine and cry to them for 20 minutes because they didn’t hold aggro properly or heal properly when they can just be a DPS without half the abuse.

If you want faster times, just queue as heals or tank. Otherwise, there’s really no solution.

PVP in WoW is an afterthought. I don’t think you’re going to see much growth there.

70

Yes, for me anything above 15 mins is unbearable, it ofc depends on what I have to do for my goal: in shuffle I need to win something like 52 games (48 + 4 to get above 1k rating) at a minimum to get the seasonal mount, so according to my previous season’s stats need something like 75 games played to win that many, which would mean around 19 hours spent just waiting in queue and more time spent waiting than actually fighting, and even when I’m one who does all gold wq and stuff like that while in queue they still end up being too long.

If queues were 30-70 mins even at my low rating I’d have to try 3 vs 3 again, even if I despise the lfg system.